Apocalyptic Alphabet
by Todler
Summary: It's 1000 days after the apocalypse, and "Pulse-users" -people who can manipulate their blood and other things- are showing up everywhere, many of them bad, and 26 of them extremely powerful. Who can unlock the keys to the past and find out why they have these strange and terrifying abilities? Emily, and her new friends are certainly going to try! -Started with a Dream I had.
1. 1 The Finding

Chapter 1~ THE FINDING

_**[SYNOPSIS: A STORY TO MY BOYFRIEND TAKEN FROM A DREAM. SO ITS IN FIRST PERSON, AS I WAS TELLING IT FROM MY POINT OF VIEW, and when it says "YOU" it is directed at ERIN. Keep that in mind. I'll fix this as I edit along.**_

_**todler (6/8/12 1:41:41 PM): you ready?**_

_**marinesrecon (6/8/12 1:42:00 PM): of course**_

_**todler (6/8/12 1:42:31 PM): OK]**_

_**FOR BATTLE SEQUENCE 1. [i'll call him enemy 1 (guy who runs to the forward left) and the other will be Enemy 2(backward right) that way you understand what happens better.]**_

Its crowded... I'm in a parking lot alone, pulling wheeled suitcase and a backpack on my shoulders. I have a baseball cap on, with my hair in a ponytail coming out the back opening where the straps are. I'm wearing really worn shoes, my clothes and backpack and suitcase are all dusty and a little faded I'm wearing mittens that unzip into fingerless gloves... The air is changing all sorts of colors; there are a lot of lights and the ground trembles every few seconds. The cars are all torn to pieces; some of them are flipped over some of them look like they had exploded already. I hear footsteps somewhere behind and to the left; a set of at least 2 people.

I stop for a second and their pace picks up... The noises split into two. I close my eyes all the colors disappear. Then something happens: the world is black, and faint purple tremors show up at every noise and every vibration in the area. Instead of seeing from where I am my mind maps it out as if I can see from every single point of vibration at the same time... Shapes from the two sources of noise reach points directly across from one another where I'm in the center. I take a slow breath and relax every muscle in my body. A burst of energy from both, simultaneous and i hear the humming of something dangerous pulsing towards me from the one behind me to the right. I see a burst of something dark exit from a strange shape being held by that one. Something that seems to suck in vibration and take away my sight making it all easier to track, as a blind spot.

I jerk my hand up and put my left thumb in my mouth, biting it sharply so that the tip bleeds. Then I slam the bleeding tip of my thumb against the inside of my other arm's elbow, and I feel a huge pulsing of vibrations come out of the hand that is attached to the inner elbow where my other hands blood touched. I swing the suitcase up with that hand grip tightly on a latch, which disconnects the hand-grip from the rest of the handle. The suitcase slides away and the hand-grip pulses to life with a long stream of the darkness that absorbs all vibration. All of this happens in just a millisecond but I process it like it's lasting several moments. I flick my wrist and the emptiness attached to the handle whips and surges with energy as it tears through the vibrations around me, reaching out for the other spot of emptiness. The person to the front left is now charging towards me. I kneel down and slam my bleeding thumb onto the ground, and as I pull my hand up it's fused with asphalt. The dark spot from the one behind me collides with the beaming whip of my own and I feel the gripping energy start to oppose my control.

I send more of the pulse from my arm into it, while pivoting on my heel still crouching and flinging the dark mass with my own. Whipping it around towards Enemy two pulses tear away the environment as they swing towards Enemy 1, but he unleashes a pulse of his own. I'm already letting go of Enemy 2's pulse and swinging my whipping pulse in an arc down towards Enemy 2. Enemy 1 braces himself as the Enemy 2's pulse collides with his own, and as he pushes it back it flies off and slams into a car, exploding. I roll towards him and slam my asphalt fused fist into the side of his knee and it snaps. I take a breath and breathe onto my hand while he rolls back landing on his one good leg and pushing his pulse-arm towards me, its covered in a shroud of emptiness. Enemy 2 jumps out of the way of my whip and shoots off another pulse of emptiness, as Enemy 1 surges forward, his pulse strengthens as if getting ready to compact. The density of the air around his arm crackles, and then like a lightning strike's effect on the air around it, the boom of thunder blasts the air as his pulse races forward in a bolt towards my chest. I kneel down, and feel the pulse tear through my shirt gashing my left shoulder blade... It would have hit my heart.

I focus on the blood coming from my fresh wound, and it darkens in my vision, into a pulse of it's own. Intensifying until it sucks in everything around it and blinds the area its in. I slam it into the ground, swing my whip forward towards Enemy 1 while he backs away, his arm shuddering. I catch him in the abdomen with the whip and it tears across his stomach, wrapping around, and then I will the pulse to change density feeling the muscles in my arm go weaker. The pulse's intensity changes and it squeezes Enemy 1's mid-section cracking ribs and collapsing lungs. I un-focus the whip and my arm goes almost limp, the pulse going much shorter and weaker. I'm flying up through the air propelled by my second pulse's push from the ground. Enemy 2 shoots a pulse at the ground and blasts himself up after me, raising his other arm and shooting up a second towards me.

I bite my tongue... The blood starts to fill up in my mouth, and I'm careful not to swallow any, as I use the pulse in my back to push me like a wing out of the way of Enemy 2's own pulse, coming towards me. But Enemy 2 is also coming towards me right behind the pulse and he smacks his fist into my gut... It hurts, and I almost cough the blood out of my mouth; but I focus and wrap the pulse coming out of my back around him binding him to me with his arms stuck facing down. I breathe deeply through my nose facing him... I open my eyes and the world comes back into my own view. His eyes meet mine and I form a pulse as dense as I can get it in my mouth, careful not to let it expand and tear me into nothingness from the inside. I wink as he starts screaming in terror, before I open my mouth and push the pulse out; reaching up with my one good arm and shoving it against his face. Using my blood to protect my own skin as the surface of the emptiness, to my normal eyes looking like a piece of blackness where nothing could manage to exist... Like a tiny black hole it gives his face the appearance of being cleanly torn through without any debris or blood, sucking it all into its own quickly rotating vortex of emptiness.

It gets bigger and bigger the more of him it consumes, and know that I wont be able to escape it myself if I don't get away. I keep my hand on it and fling him away with the pulse coming out of my back. He flies away spinning, the ball-pulse expanding at a much faster rate not that it isn't being constrained by the blood from my hand. It completely consumes him and gets a little bigger than a car, before a loud hissing starts and it shrinks until it's impossible to see; leaving the air around it warped where it's density is so insane that the light around it bends. Then it shoots up into the sky away from earth, and I lose consciousness. Falling to the ground, my pulse attached to my back turning into a strangely shaped ribbon of blood, and then raining behind me.

I groan... I don't want to open my eyes... I'm so sore... I hear a voice "She's so young... She can't be more than 5, Erin." a male voice says, soft and lacking edge, as if the person using it had only spoken a few words in his life.

"Yeah well, this little girl took on two crawlers alone." A much more masculine and edgy voice, with a reserved intensity to it. Someone used to giving commands... Someone used to them being followed. I opened my eyes and tried to raise my head, just to see the person that voice belonged to... But it made stars appear in front of me, and my head fell back down with a soft thud onto a pillow and I winced.

"Stay still." The softer voice said, annoyed. "You're so small. How you used so much blood and survived is... " and the face leaned over my own dazed face. A pale white nerdy looking man who must have been in his late teens with black hair and keen eyes. He had stubble. [Nate./Radwimp]

"It is... Interesting. See that she gets rest." the second voice said.

And as the feet belonging to the second voice started to move, I cough out "Hey!" My voice was so small... So weak in comparison... Even to the softer boy's.

"She can talk...?" The deeper voice said, pausing.

"Uh... I'm not sure. It could just be delirious With as much blood loss as she has, I wouldn't be surprised if she thinks this is B.A." The soft voice.

"I'm...not delirious." The nerdy one leans closer and pushes my eye open wide staring intently at my pupil.

"Her pupils aren't dilated, she seems to be ... Mindful... This is one intense toddler." A dark hand... Grabbed my chin and even though the grip was soft, I knew that if it had an inclination, or a miscalculation of force, my jaw would be crushed like a candy wrapper between the fingers, which had metal plating fused into it... A permanent job... Only the most powerful pulsers could permanently fuse... It tilted my head slowly until I was staring directly at a visor. There was body-armor with strange holes in it at certain points: blood-letting holes. All I could see was the mouth of this user. His lips were tight, with contemplation...

"What is your name?" Those lips said after a moment. I looked at the dark green of the helmet's visor. Behind there must be some powerful eyes...

"E." I say, somewhat worried.

"Just E?" The softer voice said somewhere behind me.

"Just E."

"The tattoo on your forehead. What does it mean?" Behind the lips were bright white teeth. A sign of power in a world where it was hard to eat things that didn't ruin teeth. Normal people's teeth always started to decay right as they hit puberty.

"... Where is my cap?" I answer instead.

"It's with the rest of your things, in this cabinet. What does that tattoo mean?"

"It's not a tattoo."

"What?" The softer voice said, stepping into view again. One of Nate's arms was robotic with his blood being pumped through clear tubes. A battle loss.

"Its... It's just there. It's not a tattoo."

"A birthmark?" The softer voice says slowly.

"A rebirth mark." I said.

"You mean it appeared on day zero?" The deeper voice.

"That's what I mean. Can you stop staring at it?"

"It's in the before language." Nate said. "Are you sure you don't know what it says?"

"It's not like I can see my forehead, now can I?" I raised my head and this time felt much better.

"Her color is already back... She's unusual." Nate said.

"You really think so?"

"Well... Look at her forehead."

"I've got one too." The visored face said.

"Yeah, thats my point exactly. You're unusual too."

"Got one of what...?" I sat up and felt the blanket slide down my skin... No clothes! I flattened like a board and shoved the blanket up over my head. "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?"

"Relax, you're so young you don't have breasts." The darker one said. I felt lower and was relieved to find my tights and skirt still on.

"I had to fix up your back... Or well. We thought I had to. But it seemed to think otherwise, and did the job itself." I stuck my hand out of the blanket and my shirt was placed in it by one of the boys... I pulled it in and put the shirt on from under the blanket, shoving the blanket down slowly trying to fight the heat of a blush on my face. The visored face was emotionless, and Nate's face looked more bored than anything. I climbed up and slowly squeezed my hands into fists.

"You're a pure, aren't you?" Nate said

"A what?"

"There are two kinds of users and five levels." The visored mouth said. "Pures and converts."

"Converts are usually level 5 or 4, and some stronger ones get to level 3." Nate took over. "Pures are usually level three by natural ability, and sometimes get to level 2... Or in really rare cases... Level one." The lighter-skinned male looked over to his visored companion somberly.

The visored face started speaking again. "Pures are people who directly became users from day zero. Converts are people who harvest pure-blood and infuse it with their own. about three fourths of them die horribly; the other fourth become users. Then you have mechas. They build machines and fuel them with pure-blood concentrations, to use."

"Like me." Nate said "Every few months, I just take a little dose of Erin's blood, and I'm fueled to keep up my medical work. In exchange for his blood, he gets free treatment. Users absorb radiation a lot faster than normal humans, and the more pure the blood, the more exponential that factor becomes."

"Oh..." I say warily, hoping that I don't look as stupid as I feel.

"So you're a pure then?"

"Maybe. Why does it matter."

"Just curious."

"Where were you, when you on day zero?"

"In a hospital, in an MRI machine."

"... Unusual." Nate said again.

"We have to go." You said suddenly, your voice flat. Nate nodded sighing and turned and put on a trench coat. I pulled open the cabinet and started to put my backpack on, but you took it instead. I took the suitcase and its handle was locked back in place. I followed you two out, Nate pulling out a huge magnum, it must have been as long as his thigh. All across his belt were cartridges, like bullets, only clear ... And inside I had the feeling there was blood.

"Why are we leaving so suddenly?"

"Because, Erin said so." Nate said blankly as if it was obvious.

"Why did you say so?" I asked. Erin stopped and turned around, held out his hand, with three fingers up. He put down his ring finger. then put down his middle finger where only your index was up. Finally he put down his index finger and the building shook, and a massive explosion down the street sent a shock-wave toward the building, and the window at the end of the hall shattered inward.

"Oh..." I said as I stood back up. I hated being on unsolid ground. We made it to the shattered window and you and Nate looked out, Nate firing off two shots into the distance. I was too short to see, so I ran up the opposite wall, and landed sitting on the windowsill. Before I could see anything, other than that we were VERY high up...

I was yanked back into the window and landed roughly on my butt. "Don't get in my way." Erin said. He didn't even bother to look at me letting go and raising his other arm. I felt every ounce of air in the room freeze in suspense. A huge explosion happened in the distance again and Nate fell over this time, but Erin stood as if unaffected, and I knew his blood was getting ready, for that familiar intensity of adrenaline high that came with Using.

Erin's effect on the environment, warping it to the naked eye as his body densified was insane. His feet cracked the floor tile and then a pulse shot from his hand, so small and fast that I only caught the movement of it, and couldn't actually see it. I felt it though. It pulled on everything as it tore through matter towards whatever unlucky beings were down there making the explosions. My hair blew toward it gently and then it exploded when it hit wherever he was aiming it. The pull was reversed and every bit of matter of the building was altered slightly. I felt like someone had changed me into a fish and I needed to suddenly use water to breathe for a moment.

All the air was pushed away... Gravity was gone. As soon as I realized it, the effect was over as the shock-wave pulled back in to disappear. You pulled Nate up and instead of pulling me to my feet you yanked me up by my waist, bruising my hip, but only until I was securely balanced against the hard plating of your armor. You turned and started running. Down the hall you kicked a door off its hinges and it flew to the opposite wall and shattered. I had enough time to watch Nate push a button, like one of those gas bubbles on a weed eater that you push to get the gas flow started. The room was a stairwell going in a square spiral all the way down... It must have been ten floors to the bottom.

You jumped and Nate jumped behind you. Every instinct I had was to bite my hand and use the pulse to grab onto a ledge to keep from falling to my death. But your arm wrapping down my back and supporting me against your hip by my thigh made it impossible for me to bite into my thumb. The fall seemed to take forever and as we were going down I heard Nate let off a few shots. He was falling behind us. Some people in dirty clothes... No. A lot of people in dirty worn clothes with holes.. They looked like bandits.

Crawlers... Just like the ones who had attacked me. Converts who attack Pures in mass to harvest their blood. Nate was shooting them as they burst through the walls behind our fall. Below us they were starting to burst through too... I didn't really think it mattered. By the time we land, all that will be left is blood anyways so those crawlers should just give up and take the elevator to the bottom where they can collect.

And then suddenly the ground was rushing towards us from ahead as you flipped over mid air and sent a push of density down in a constant flow, slowing us by... A lot. Nate's robotic feet, shaped like hands as if he was a robotic monkey waist-down, gripped against yours, and he kept shooting that magnum, expertly hitting a crawler in every blast... I felt myself go green; right as we reached the ground I threw up, and it landed in a crawler's face as he jumped up to meet us with a pulse blade.

I felt you laugh though the armor. You flipped expertly, landing and rolling, with me spinning and spinning. We burst through the wall and Nate followed shooting back and forwards with three magnums while hopping on his fourth leg. You stood up straight and sat me down on the ground where i wobbled a little before falling flat-faced onto the grass of the buildings lawn. Crawlers, I noticed as I fell dizzily, were everywhere. Like a sea.. At least 60. I sighed...

My forehead started to burn slightly...Then stronger... And then like the shift of the pinch of a knife against skin turning finally into the searing pain of a cut. The pain filled me and i screamed and writhed on the ground. Blood was flying everywhere in my moments of conscious awareness. You were standing there, looking down as if you were wondering what was wrong... While your blood Flowed like a sea through the air, so dense that it was visible to the naked eye.

You lifted up your visor and looked at me closely. I couldn't stand to look at your face... I tried and the burn in my forehead intensified. I felt like my face would melt off. You pushed down your visor, and and turned your attention to the crawlers. They were encircling us, careful not to get close to the swirling blood, as it put a hiss on the air... Extinguishing all matter it touched.

Nate crawled over to me, staying low to the ground, where the intense pressure was weaker, between the encircling blood-flows. Nate pushed his hand against my forehead too feel if i was feverish or something and I screamed and his hand was repulsed by an invisible force. He backed away, frowning and hard in thought. The blood swirled and the converts started to swarm inwards through the apparent gaps in the constantly swirling mist.

The blood when it touched them just a droplet, spreading so much that it covered them to where it looked like where one moment a crawler had stood he was replaced by a blood statue replica to the exact detail. And then it hardened.

Tiny droplets of blood, as soon as they touched the crawlers would densify; covering the crawlers like plating... It looked as if the hand of God had paused time, made a perfect replica of a living being out of hardened blood, and replaced them in the blink of an eye. The blood-plated crawlers lost control of their bodies and became like puppets to your will. They started to slash and thrash against their comrades covered in the armor-like blood while the bodies within suffocated.

The stronger converts dodged through anyway, and killed their overtaken companions cutting their way to you, and us. You faced them as the stronger ones pushed through. They waited for more of their comrades to make it through. I understood what you were doing, behind all my pain... The river of blood-mist had been a obstacle to weed out the weak ones. These converts had no idea what they were dealing with... But I totally lost consciousness then, giving into the pain and I shook and thrashed on the ground screaming until my voice wasn't able to make any noise, and still trying to scream.

Twelve of them... Somehow I was still slightly aware of what was going on. They surrounded you in a perfectly spaced circle, like a clock, with you at the center. They crouched getting ready to all pounce in at once, their pulses vibrating slightly with building charge. Everything became dark again, and my muscles relaxed. I saw through pure energy, absolute nothing in every direction beyond a certain point. Your blood-mist river was cutting us off from everything else in the universe. Blinding me to everything outside of it.

The 12 jumped, and just as they started to leave the ground, I felt your face tighten... Into a grin. Then such an insane pressure collapsed on top of everything. Leaving a bubble around me and Nate. But not even around you. The entire ground busted into pieces and the pressure was so high that they started to awkwardly float upwards because of the force of earth's mass pushing back against such a strong pressure.

Gravity was gone again.

You stood while every one of the crawlers crashed to the ground so hard that they left imprints several inches deep. Their bodies busted open, their bones broke. You turned around to face the other direction; something you sensed that I couldn't. I was writhing in mid-air in this gravity-absent tiny universe that existed only within your blood-mist bubble.

A bang, bigger than the others went off, far far far in the distance. My forehead hurt even more, as if it was being torn open by a deranged lunatic with a wooden spoon, and the sky began to cloud over. Suddenly you released the pressure and the blood-mist fell to the ground.

In that moment, I saw Everything... I saw every single thing within Earth's atmosphere, at once... And the one thing that drew my entire focus away from the rest was a faceless entity; burning with so much energy that the ground beneath him was disintegrating slowly, so that he left a trail of eaten away concrete as he walked down a highway in some far of city. The city i knew, was entirely void of life; and yet a second earlier, I could sense that there had been close to 25 million living there.

And then, I felt that facelessness focus on me; and an intake of raspy breath before he stopped and raised his hand and seemed to look at me even though I was seeing from everywhere. I could feel his focus sharpen onto me, like a grip of pure will. He closed his hand into a claw... and started to close the grip. I felt my heartbeat slow. I felt my control begin to break. And then I could see nothing.

END CHAPTER 1 - THE FINDING.

(THANK YOU ERIN, MY LOVELY BOYFRIEND FOR HELPING ME BETA-READ AND EDIT.)


	2. 2 PHANTASM

CHAPTER 2 - Phantasm

When i woke up next, it was to a really loud noise... that sounded like a thousand birds beating their wings at once. I opened my eyes, and couldnt see anything with them. I reached up and rubbed them... A hand found my wrist; it was metallic. "Ease up, E. We're in a metabird."

"Can... Where is the light?"

"Hm?" he said, prodding me on my shoulders and neck; checking vitals.

"...Can you see?" I say less sure of myself.

"Sure i can. why... cant you?" He says blankly.

My silence seemed to be contageuos because all he said was "Oh..." and then I heard him clank away quietly on his metal hand-feet.

"... I dont want to move... What is a metabird...? ... Who... Who was that..." I didnt realize I was speaking out loud. A calm and edgy voice which must be yours spoke

"A metabird is the P.A. term for hellicopter. And that was Nate. Do you remember him?"

"I ... Yeah..." I say, deciding it's probably best to forget the being who took my sight in case he finds out I told about him. "I can't see..."

"... Sorry. You seem to be affected when I use a lot of power."

"We're alive arent we? Don't apologize. Where did you get a heli... a metabird?"

"I'm part of a militia, I guess you could say. We have resources." I start to climb up... But not being able to see anything is hard.. Then a hand grabs my shoulder and pulls me up gently.

"...Thanks... can i hang onto you or something...?"

"I'll just carry you."

"no!... i can walk.. just ... let me hold onto your hand or something. dont lead me into anything..."

"Alright then." You lead me through a hall walking slow... I'm trying to get used to standing up... But I can feel my balance fail several times... Thank god you are holding my hand... I hope you don't know the change in pull I use to hold myself up.

Something is wrong with me... Of course something is... I can't see. I am too scared to try and use my full sight. I dont want to... Sense. You pick me up at one point, and I protest, but weakly... I was getting less and less coordinated and weak legged. By the time we get where you were taking me, I had already fallen asleep with my head against your... Something. Unable to see what. You woke me up by talking into my ear softly "We're landing. Get ready to at least uh, say hello, to a few of my friends." I wondered If I was your friend also. The hellicopter landed and I yawned feeling drool lead down my chin. I wondered how retarded I must look... No point in caring, if I can't see then I can't be blamed.

But when your hand wiped the drool away, I felt myself blush and felt both embarrassed and grateful. "Who's in the general's arm?"

"Shut up, dont get his attention!" I heard whispers as we appraoched I felt suddenly more intimidated and awed by you... Were you a general..? Were these men scared of you? Being a general is not just being a _part_ of a militia... I heard the sound of metal doors automatically opening. BA tech; rare for buildings like that to be functioning. You walked me so far turned twice and then stopped setting me onto a surface... I was pretty sure it was a table... I heard a few throats clear

"This girl. she's a pure, like that since day zero... don't know how old she is." you stated tonelessly. "I'm going to train her."

"Hold on a minute. She looks to be no older than five." One voice said, an older man's.

"I'm nine!" i said angrily. Something about that voice annoyed me... OK, maybe it was that he called me a five-year-old.

"Nine? Surely not. You're so small." The voice said, but was shut up by a throat clearing from somewhere else on the table.

"I believe... She has some sort of complication, Erin. She can't see." I felt an intense change in someone in the room... Thats when I realized was a conference of level ones. I could distinguish through just the power of each one, that there were at least seven seperate people. Mabye more, with similar auras. Among them, three were the most prominant. Yours was one.

"What do you want to train her for, if she's blind?" Another voice said. Something gave me the feeling that this voice was one of the other top three. It was also the voice that belonged to the shifting intensity. It was focused now, instead of the laid back boredom that I sensed before.

"Because, she took on two crawlers, with a body of that size... Used up most of her blood and survived. I think she could be valuable." I noted with interest how you neglected to mention that my wounds healed almost immediately.

"What Cameron means is, what makes her special enough to be trained... By... You?" This voice was female and I could feel a bit of jealousy in the speakers aura. but they weren't nearly as powerful as you or this "Cameron" or one other presence in the room that I couldn't make out. Your hand gently closed around my face and I felt you push up my bangs, showing them all the mark. Now all of their attentions were grabbed.

When you touched the mark on my forehead, my head started hurting and my ears rang... and slowly color filled in vision world in my left eye... My sight was returning. To my left eye at least.I looked around the room my gaze stopped on Cameron. He had a black outfit made entirely of armor on, with glowing red lining and his face was entirely obscured. I could sense that he enjoyed the pain of others... I could sense that he had killed innumerable people.

And then I turned back and faced you. You were not wearing your body armor, and your eyes were red with no pupils visible. "I want to train with him." I said as if my choice would matter. You and cameron stared eachother down. I could sense tension, a rivalry between you two.

"I can train her, Erin is needed for fieldwork." Cameron said, a fiendish curl at the side of his mouth.

"**So are you.**" A new voice said. A very deep voice that seemed to come out of the walls. "**Erin. Train her if you must but if she becomes a hindrance to you or your duties, I will have her harvested.**" the deep voice said.

"Yes, Parthonias." The new voice... didn't belong to any presence at all.

"Who..." you looked at me sharply and I shut my mouth. "If tha'ts all..." You picked me up before waiting for anyone to say more, and we were moving briskly in a new direction.

"That cameron. he .. he killed a lot of people."

"So have i. weren't you there when I was fighting those crawlers?'

"Yes but... But they were evil."

"What do you mean? Cameron kills crawlers just like me, so whats the difference?"

"...Nevermind." I said, letting go of my grip over the auras of that room. Forgetting about the third presence entirely.

"So where are you from? I mean BA of course."

"My place was nowhere. We moved a lot."

"Well where were you when you had that MRI on Day Zero?"

"... Before the apocalypse I was a cancer patient in New York." I started to wiggle in your grip as we came out of the bunker-like place onto a balcony, overlooking huge mountains. The rockies, I think. You let me down, and I look around... My clothes were worse off than ever. "Can I have armor like that?"

"... I'm not sure. You're a little small to wear anything this heavy."

"It doesn't seem that heavy."

"That's beacuse you're not wearing it." you pull off your helmet and for the first time I'm able to look directly at your face. On your forehead is a C. You hold the helmet out, and I grab it... It's so dense, that the moment your grip leaves it, it plumets to the ground and I let go, thankfully, where it smashes into the ground breaking apart the cement surface.

"Oh..."

"So do you know how to bend on your own?

"What?"

"Can you change the density of things on your own? Or just use your blood by instinct?

"Um..." I shrug I had never heard of any user who could change the density of things OTHER than their blood. "So we both have one... Are we the only ones?"

"The letters? they mean something, and no. I know of seven in total, but there are probably more. So far we know of C, F, N, R, X, Y and now E."

"What...?"

"The symbol on your forehead is an E. The one on mine is a C. Cameron has F. A man and his son are N and Y, they are loose affiliates to the militia. R is a bounty hunter, and X is a member of the militia, who went Missing in Action a few months ago, and is assumed dead. Cameron was with him, and said they got overwhelmed by unknowns."

"Oh... And I'm E?"

"Of course."

"What do they mean?"

"They are letters of the a BA alphabet system."

"Oh."

"High-tech was erased from most people's memories, particularly the young, on day zero.

"Yeah..." I said, feeling stupider every second.

"Our leader, Parthonias is one of the first readers. He remembers more about BA-tech than just about people have never even heard of him, and even I haven't met him."

"That voice?"

"Yes. He can transmute his presence from dimension to dimension."

"And that means?"

"He can be in several places at once coexisting. He can exist as many times in any place as he wants, or not at all. He's omnipresent."

"Oh... Wow. What can you do?"

"I am the most proficient Pulse-user in the militia. People say I've got the thickest blood on earth."

"What can Cameron do?"

"He can fade and absorb energy. He's really good for sensory tactics."

"What can I do...?"

"Well, I don't know. You can use moderately well." You looked down at the helmet and it flew up into your hand.

"Anyways, that's what I'm planning on finding out. Just what you can do." You slid it over your face, dropping the visor down. The corners of your mouth turned up. You moved your hand forward putting your palm on my stomach with your fingers pointing down in a flat position. "Show me yourself." A pressure threw me back several feet, in the center of my weight so that I didn't roll, and only slid back.

I looked at you a little surprised, with a glint of anger. "You could have warned me!"

"Real life doesn't come with warnings." You taunt back. I squeeze my hands into fists nervously... I've seen the sort of things you can do with apparent ease... An image of the flesh peeling from the bones of those twelve crawlers comes into my mind... I wince and close my eyes instinctively, grimacing. The world is black, as everything is totally stilled. Slowly an energy glows and I see 360 degrees, from every point where solid surface exists for the air to vibrate against. I watch your movement, but your body moves so fast that even though I see every tiny twitch, I can't actually keep up and you are elbowing me in the ribs... I see my feet lift from the ground from the force, but while my legs fly up from the blow, you're already pushing down on the center of my shoulder-blades with your fist; as the ground rushes up smacking into my chest.

You step away... Blood ... I cough up blood. I slap it with my hand, trying to ignore the agony building in my ribs... the ground fuses with that hand, and i use the fusion to push myself back to my feet, cracking the ground beneath yours. Your one step ahead, and jump up pushing your fingers into the steel cieling with ease and hanging there watching me. I breath in and then blow the breath onto my hand, a pulse forming from the blood vapor forming out of the fractured ribs.

I shoot it out, but without a handle to focus it through, I'm much less in control of the vinelike whip slashing it up towards you. You flip under the whip and fall toward me with your knee up, ready to smack me under my chin, a knee-uppercut. I hit your knee with my fused hand, knocking it away from my face, but in the movement you stick out your elbow again, and it smacks into the side of my head so forcefully that I do a mid-air cartwheel. As I fly dazed, my whip catches you around your chest, going up over one shoulder and under the other. _(like ... ... diagonally)_ It burns through the armor a little, before I hit the ground and go black-out, and the pulse shimmers and turns into blood, rolling down the armor and splattering onto the ground.

"You are really strong." You say, as I open my eyes carefully. The light makes my head hurt...

"Dim...Dim the lights..."

"You managed to hit me.. Twice."

"Yeah..." You say hesitantly. "Anyways, let's just get you feeling ready spar again. That was a test of your skill level. Now it's time to build upon your strengths and even out your weaknesses."

I sit up slowly. You are sitting across from me, with your no armor on. There is a bandage on your shoulder.

"What happened to your shoulder?"

"You don't know?"

"My whip did that? I didn't think it made it through the armor completely." You stare at me for a minute, before looking away. "You were pretty dazed, maybe that's why you didn't think so." Something about your change in tone made me .. annoyed. As if you were hiding something from me.

"Yeah ok...So I managed to scratch you maybe. You did a lot worse, didnt you?"

"Yeah, well. I'm well trained, and the best user in the militia. One of the best on the planet."

"Sounds like you have the biggest head in the militia, so at least you have that going for you." Cameron's voice said, as he entered. "She intrigues me too, you know." he continued. I look hatefully at him. He makes me uneasy... "She managed to scratch you. E, hmm? One above F, if the rumor on ranking is true."

"Yeah, or below you, if some people are right. But then, they can't be, beacuse I'm so much more powerful than you." You say to him.

"We haven't fought seriously since Vegas, Erin." Cameron said in a teasing way.

"Get out. I don't need to hear your rambling rivalry while I deal with this girl's wounds." a female voice said.

Girls, PA, are rare... It's not that there are less girls, only that most of them are in very low situations, or in hiding. Usually as almost-slaves. The world went back to violent strength being the order of the food chain so to speak. It was rare for a girl to last long as a violent type, because they were targeted... For obvious can be horrible.

"What... Oh... I thought you said she had broken ribs?"

"Oh." You said suddenly "I just assumed. I was going very easy on her, so maybe I didn't quite damage her as much as I had thought."

"...Hmm" Cameron said but he frowned and winked at me, before putting his hand over his mouth and walking out.

I stand up and the girl shrugs.

"Let's go!" I said. I wanted to punch something. that cameron guy just... Seriously got on my nerves the way he ... Just breathed... Made me want to scream. You shrugged and stood up, sliding a shirt on and led me out of the room. We went back out to a new outer zone, this one with a hellipad.

"We're going into Corporate City." As you strapped me into a child's seat freshly installed into a black sleek metabird that looked more high-tech than the rest, the pilot climbed in.

"Evening sir, your bird is ready. Where to?"

"Why do I have to sit in this thing?" I say interupting the pilot.

"Because I said." You say. "Take us to corporate, and uh, take the scenic route." I look around the inside of the metabird. Lots of glass, with pictures moving behind it... B.A. tech. Maps, with colors and coding and tiny little emblems on it. A newsfeed flashing every few seconds with a new bit of information from several different battlefronts. A television phone, with a logo moving across it saying "COMMAND" It was obviously idle. There were guns, of B.A. and P.A. type racking the walls. Spears and swords too.

This was your personal little private area. There was an entire command ship... This was a custom built metabird... With jet engines, hidden compartments full of weaponry, a private quarters, a medical closet, and a command center. It was your own personal Air-Force One. The metabird lifted off and you sat down across from me. I leered at you.

"I can stand with my own feet you know."

"I know." You say, raising your eyebrows. "It's just a measure of safety."

"For who? If this thing blows up, I'll be stuck here."

"Yeah well, if it blows up, jumping out would kill you too."

"... I'm hungry."

"Well we'll eat when we get to Corporate City."

"Oh... fine then." I say looking down at the straps going across my body.

"I'm going to buy you something." you say. The noise from the metabird is suddenly let in as the door opens, and Nate climbs in, carrying a bag that jingles with coins.

"Got the expense account opened like you said, took out 1/8th of the voucher. He sat down next to me and leaned close examining the child restraints as I in turn tried to examine the sack and its contents. "Seems like I built things thing just perfectly. Excellent. Anyways, what are you going to do with this account?"

"It's hers. But you will be managing it, and I'll be the executive of her funds. Which means anything she wants, she has to have approved by me, and you have to make the direct purchase."


	3. 3 Corporate Cataclysm

Chapter 3

-Corporate Cataclysm-

Life wasn't always so simple. Before the apocalypse, the world was much more complex, with hundreds of laws. These laws made everyone 'equal'. Earth wasn't like that anymore... Not since Day Zero. The cities that remained after the Phasing didn't have any order. No real justice. Most of them, as a result, were overrun by gangs of convert users. They would abuse their power of the weaker normal humans, making life a living hell for anyone who didn't follow their ridiculously biased codes.

Now life consisted of 'do what the users say, or be abused.' Perhaps, never seen again. Perhaps a member of your family would disappear and never be heard from again. That was what life consisted of day-to-day for most normal humans, in most normal cities. The rare exceptions, of course, did exist.

Corporate City, once known as Seattle Washington, with it's Space Needle a symbol that had come to be synonymous with liberty and values for normal humans and users alike, that simply didn't exist in the same way any place other than there. Rumors were that Corporate City welcomed normal humans and users, anyone who would simply agree to follow the Code.

The Code...

Do not kill.

Do not steal.

Do not enter restriction zones without clearance.

Do not activate Pulses within city-limits.

By following these simple rules, anyone was allowed into Corporate City. And because no one ever seemed to want to leave, the rumors were that it was a utopia, behind those hundred foot walls surrounding the entire cityscape. Put up by the Militia. An army of users and normal humans alike, working together to ensure cooperation of the human race as a whole, and peace for the north-west regions of what used to be known as North America.

Brianna had to see for herself. That's why she had run away from the midlands of North America all the way to Portus, the P.A. Name for the old city of Portland Oregon. It had been a rough journey, and a lot of troublesome people had to be disposed of on the way. But she'd also met a few allies, such as James. A user, who wore a scarf and Desert garb. She had been really nervous and mistrusting of him when they met in Arizona, but he'd shown nothing but loyalty, and a remarkable skill at Using. She looked at him through the corner of her eyes.

He was standing still, the guns strapped to his back folded up. He was a real soldier, one of the ones trained in the old time. And with his Pulse abilities, he was quite a force on his own. He tilted his head toward her. "Something up?" His voice was flat from behind the desert-issue power armor's helmet. She'd never seen him without it on, even just the helmet. She didn't know anything about this man, but he had followed her and killed a lot of people who otherwise would probably have really made life tough for her.

He didn't speak much either. And when he did, it was very straight-to-the-point. "No, everything is good, I guess. What do you see?" They were on top of a roof, her lounging on a cushioned bench while he looked over the edge using his power helmet to see things too distant for naked eyes to see. How he managed to have working power armor was just one more weird thing about this man. "Can you see any vehicles?"

"Yes, but none that would suit my taste..." He said in his flat filtered voice. "If only we could find a nice car, but I suppose they are all taken in a city like this." She looked up at him. They were in a post-apocalyptic world, and he was complaining about not being able to drive a Mercedes?

"Whatever, we just need something with wheels that will move faster than we walk." She said, biting into a piece of dried meat. She wasn't sure what animal it was from, and probably didn't want to know. Quality food was a rare thing for normal humans these days. Luckily, she was able to at least cook, and that provided her with decent meals, even if the ingredients weren't exactly super-market quality. "See any that fit that description?"

He turned his head back towards the ledge, and after a moment shrugged his shoulders. "How many of those kids are we planning on taking?" They had run into a group of children who were hiding in the building they were using as a camp a few weeks ago. Since then they had been looking for a way to escort them all out. James couldn't leave to take a group and leave another group behind with Brianna, because James was the only one handy with weapons that could stop a user if one showed up. And Brianna, for that same reason, couldn't go ahead with a group and come back. It was all just too risky. Thirteen children, and a teenager, all basically in the protection of this one rusty armor wearing soldier.

"All of them, James. Don't even joke about that. We can't leave any here, even if we have to walk." She said it earnestly, but she was worried that if they DID try to walk, it would lead to them all dying. A large group like that couldn't move through the open when almost half of them were girls. They'd be nabbed for sure.

"Alright, relax. I was just proposing something in my head, but you're right, we have to do it all at once. I see a suitable vehicle. It's a jeep. It will be very crowded though." Before waiting for an answer, the power armored male walked over the ledge of the building and was flailing towards the earth. Brianna was used to it... His reckless disregard for his own safety. It's just the way he was, since she first laid eyes on him.

"Well, whatever then, you do what you gotta do. I'm going to get the children ready." She said as if he was still standing on the rooftop ten feet away. She stood up and climbed through the roof hatch, closing it behind her. By the time she made it to the bottom floor; (no elevators were trusted by Brianna, it was one of her rules); there was already a hummer3 parked outside, and James was throwing spare tires into the back and having the children sit on them. "Oh, OK then."

The engine hummed to life, sounding in remarkably good condition... How did he find this so fast? It must be that damn suit. It had saved them a lot of time on their journey together from Arizona up north. "You kids ready? You've probably never even been in a moving vehicle, have you?" James said, and though his voice was flat, it was apparent he was excited to be behind a wheel again himself.

Brianna looked back through the Hummer, checking to make sure each face was there. They had just loaded the last of everything, and were pulling out of the make-shift garage. There were tanks and canisters of gas lining the walls, and a jack, though James had lifted the whole Hummer's front end earlier when he needed to change the front left tire. He said it was punctured. Best to start fresh and not let a punctured tire take up space that could be filled with a fresh one.

"Can you drive, by the way?" He asked her, his flat voice seeming to float easily above the noise of the engine. The children were all quiet, staring out of the windows at the world as it flashed by. "I mean, can you drive well?"

"Oh... I never had a license, but I know how to turn the steering wheel and break. It's not like I have to follow any traffic laws." She responded, easily. They would be on their way at last. "Why? You expecting trouble?"

"Not particularly, but... One doesn't see a car in working order very often these days. If there is anyone's attention to be attracting, I'm sure we'll attract it." He said, staring ahead. The Hummer was moving along quickly. Faster than Brianna would have been comfortable driving. Perhaps his reckless disregard for safety extended to anyone in a car with him.

"Let's just get to Corporate City, OK?" She turned and looked out her own window, watching the massive trees pass by. They were easily wider than the entire hummer at their base sometimes. The redwoods of the northwest. She had been so awed by them... Well, no. She had been to California before Day Zero, when she was little and the world was sane, and seen the same trees. They had awed her then, but now. When almost all of the old world was gone or changed so drastically that it was unrecognizable, these trees remained the same, majestic towers of solitude as ever. It was nice to see that something was still in it's right place after that strange day.

Eventually, she joined most of the children in sleep, leaving James the lone vigil, forever pressing on, with all their fates in his hands. _'I wonder what she plans to do when we get to Corporate City. All these children, and yet I'm just after someone. I can't stick around and protect them forever. She better be right about it being a safe-haven from bad. But something tells me... Well... Just experience... Life isn't ever that simple. This place is going to be as bad as the rest, I can feel it... And what then?'_ He was pulled out of his thoughts by a strange hissing noise. A tire had been punctured or slit by something on the road. He honked the horn to wake up everyone in the vehicle.

"Here's what I need you all to do. Keep quiet. Keep low. Keep calm. Whatever you see, whatever you are told, don't come out. I'll make sure that no one comes in but me. If they do, Brianna, shoot them." He hands her his rifle. She takes, looking over it nervously before narrowing her eyes and nodding with resolve. "Good." he said, turning and in an instant, he was gone.

~BRIANNA~

"... OK... Kids, listen to me. Stay quiet like he said. Something is wrong, and we know James doesn't play around about this sort of stuff right? So just... Just stay calm." She wasn't sure as she listened to her own voice who she was trying to reassure, the children or herself. A scrape on the side of the hummer made the kids jump, and Brianna brought the muzzle of the gun up to face the rear passenger door.

"Bri, I'm scared..." A young girl said. Her name was Ashlyn, and she was seven or eight. A younger girl was hugging Ashlyn's arm and sucking her thumb furiously with wide scared eyes. A boy who was fourteen put his hand on Ashlyn's shoulder. He had been the leader of this little gang of children before Brianna and James had arrived. His name was Abhi. He was from The East Coast originally, and had made his way all the way to Oregon, gathering a group of orphaned children as he went. He was a user, and he wore a bandanna on his forehead, one that was obviously a cheap knock-off of the karate kid headband from that pre-apocalypse movie series.

"It's OK, Ash, don't worry." The boy said. "Bri has a gun, and I can use. Not to mention, somewhere out there, is James." A face appeared suddenly in the window, tattooed, with wild hair, and teeth filed to sharp points. A woodsman. Bandits who were rumored to eat their victims. Vicious and almost feral. But then he flew back from the window and smacked against the trunk of a mighty redwood, and James stepped into view. The crushing force of the throw made the bark on the Redwood shatter like water trapped on a trampoline flying up when someone belly flops. The woodsman fell down, likely dead. Ashlyn screamed, as a hand busted through Brianna's window, grabbing for the gun. Brianna spit into the horrible face's eyes, and used the but of the rifle to break his nose. Turning it around and blasting him in the shoulder. He fell, heaving. Abhi was the only one in the car with a calm head. All the other children were well below 10.


End file.
